The new cultivar is a product of a planned breeding program by the inventor. The crossing was made in December 2012, at a nursery in Kulnura, Australia. The seed parent is the commercial variety Gardenia ‘Buttons’, U.S. Plant Pat. No. 24,229. The pollen parent is an unnamed, unpatented Gardenia radicans. The inventor discovered this new variety at the same nursery in March 2016.
After identifying the new variety as a potentially interesting selection, the inventor first organized propagation of ‘PARWHI’ by semi-hardwood vegetative cuttings during 2016 at the same commercial nursery in Kulnura, Australia. The inventor continued confidential, controlled testing and propagation, assessing stability of the unique characteristics of this variety. Multiple generations have been reproduced and have shown that the unique features of this cultivar are stable and reproduced true to type.